what’s happening at the ranch? Have my men found the shooter?” he said, talking louder as thunder rumbled outside.
“I don’t know. I’m not at the ranch.”
Brady knitted his brow. “Why not?” he barked. “I told Wilhite to keep everyone on premises until I got back.”
“My...shot. Bleeding out, and...trauma cent— April...in my truck.”
The snips of Nate’s reply that Brady caught sent a chill through him. Had something happened to April after he’d left?
“Say that again, Nate? What about April?”
Then he recalled Nate’s mother calling for help during the chaos.
“Gotta go...” Nate said.
“Wait!” Brady ran a hand over his face, wiping rain from his nose and brow. “I’m leaving Rooster tied to the fence by the equipment shed in the north pasture. Can you call and send someone to get him? I’m going after Kara, and I don’t—”
He cut his sentence off as a crack of thunder rattled the shed and loud static crackled in his ear. “Nate?”
He checked his screen and read, Call dropped. Grumbling a curse word, he tried to phone Wilhite. He was painfully aware of how much time he was using, how much farther ahead of him Kara was getting. When Wilhite didn’t answer his cell, he tapped out a rapid text, letting him know someone needed to get Rooster and asking him to let him know if Kara showed up back at the ranch.
Before heading out, he found a scrap of an old grocery sack, and wrapped it around his phone. Not much protection from the rain, but it was better than nothing. After stashing the cell phone in the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket, he mounted the ATV and headed out.
Given that the rain had softened the ground, he searched the far perimeter of the pasture for hoof prints leading away from the ranch. Ten minutes later, he found what he’d been looking for. A definite set of tracks heading toward the rugged terrain of the Caprock escarpment. Nerves jangling, he wheeled the ATV around to follow the trail of prints. A few hundred yards out onto the plain, he found a sodden white ribbon, evidence he was on the right track. His pulse jacked higher.
He paused long enough to cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “Kara!”
Turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees, he scanned the area. Nothing. Just rain, more rain and an empty landscape.
“Damn it, Kara, where are you? What made you run?” He settled back on the ATV and squeezed the clutch, wondering if he meant what made her run from the barn today...or what made her run from their relationship?
Either. Both. He’d spent the past ten months asking himself what he’d done wrong, why she’d left him, how he could convince her they were made for each other. Sure, she’d been worried about him when he’d taken the interim position as sheriff—an unexpected direction for his career but one he was honored to accept—but her concern for his safety on the job seemed a trifling thing to break up over. It was ludicrous. When he’d told her as much, she’d twisted his words, and they’d had a pointless fight about him not respecting her or some such hogwash.
How could she think he didn’t respect her? She was completely amazing. Her love for and rapport with animals, her quick wit and sharp mind...not to mention her unbelievable courage and skill as a bullfighter in the rodeo.
Calling bullfighters by the more popular term “rodeo clowns” was something of an injustice, in his view. There was nothing funny about what Kara and other bullfighters faced in the arena. Distracting an angry, bucking bull, protecting riders took guts, speed and lightning reflexes. He was proud beyond words that Kara was one of the few women bullfighters in the business. Not respect her? He scoffed at the notion. He respected the hell out of her. He just didn’t understand her. He couldn’t—
The ATV hydroplaned, spinning sideways and nearly tipping over as he crossed some standing water. Righting the vehicle, Brady shook his head and sucked in a cleansing breath. He needed to quit obsessing over his arguments with Kara and concentrate on finding her. He’d have a hard enough time navigating in this wretched weather and getting them both back to the Wheeler Ranch safely.
As he traveled deeper into the path of the thunderstorm, the pounding rain and whipping winds obscured visibility. The trail of hoof prints got harder and harder to follow as the storm washed the impressions away. But since Kara had seemed to be traveling a straight path, logic said his best bet was to forge ahead in the same direction the trail had been going.
Flat land gave way to sloping rock and ravines. Small streams of runoff filled every dip and crevice in the increasingly steep terrain. Surely Kara hadn’t ventured into such dangerous terrain alone, especially not during a thunderstorm...
Within seconds of that thought, a movement to his right caught Brady’s attention. The gray mare Kara had ridden away on trotted out from the shallow end of a ravine. Without a rider.
* * *
Okay, Kara thought as the mare disappeared down the arroyo, so you lost the horse. You’re stranded. The gully is filling with swift water. It looks bad, but you can’t panic.
Fruitlessly wiping water off her face, Kara drew a slow, deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. Stay calm and think.
The first thing she had to do was get out of the arroyo. Seeing as how she didn’t know how far the horse had come up the arroyo—damn it, why hadn’t she paid attention where she was going?—and seeing as how her most immediate danger was the rapidly rising level of runoff water, her priority was getting up. The mare couldn’t have climbed the steep rocky walls of the arroyo, but she had to try. Squinting against the sting of wind-driven rain, she eyed the ravine walls and picked a spot that seemed easiest to ascend.
Scrabbling to find toeholds and rocks or roots she could pull herself up with, she started the awkward climb. Her waterlogged dress clung to her legs, encumbering her movement, and the rough rocks scraped her hands and cut into her bare feet. But she struggled on, trying to ignore the pain. The wind made it difficult to keep her balance, and the rain left the rocks slick. The rapidly dropping temperature chilled her to the bone, and shudders of cold soon racked her muscles, hastening her fatigue. Thank you, Texas crazy weather.
She made it within a few feet of the top ledge, still too far to hoist herself up to level ground, before she knew she had to stop. She had to rest or risk losing her grip and falling. Glancing around her, she spotted an indentation in the wall of the arroyo. The space was too shallow to be called a cave but deep enough for her to sit and have limited protection from the howling wind and precipitation.
Mustering the last of her strength, she reached for the low-hanging branch of a cottonwood tree. The first limb she grabbed broke off in her hand. Losing that anchor shifted her balance, and with a gasp, she teetered precariously.
She grasped frantically for another branch. The new branch dipped and stretched from her weight...but held. The moment of panic fueled her muscles with a spurt of adrenaline. Heart racing, she used the new energy to edge toward the small outcropping of rock and dirt.
When she reached the narrow ledge beneath the protective rock angling out of the bluff, she sank tiredly to her bottom and leaned back against the wall of red clay stone. Shutting her eyes against the continuing rain and wind, she allowed her muscles to relax and her
